Africa Yes We Can but only If We are United

“We cannot be kept into a limited space by African leaders who are holding on to petty little states” President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.

For decades the dream of an African continent united under one leadership, one government with a prosperous people with shared values, shared interest, common citizenship and with a common destiny and taking their place in the world community of nations has alluded the leadership in Africa. On the 12th of February 2009 Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade is quoted as saying: “The United States of Africa will be proclaimed in 2017, to allow for the time needed to work out the different African institutions," Source:Pan-African News Agency, 12th of February 2009.

If the United States of Africa is realized it will be a milestone for many who want to see a united Africa with a common foreign policy, trade policy, common agricultural policy, common environment, immigration and economic policy. There are many skeptics who doubt Africa's ability to achieve unity but I strongly believe it is possible to achieve unity if we work together. Unity in Africa is achievable if we eschew the bickerings and the misunderstandings that characterized earlier effort to unite.

African leaders must first and foremost recognize that unity in Africa is in our best interest and the only option we have if we want to attain peace, stability and economic development. We all must recognize that we can only make progress if North, South, East, Central and West Africa come together as one, act together as one and speak with one voice. Unity is the only key to our economic success. We can only make progress if we dismantle the artificial boundaries that have divided our peoples for quite too long. We can never develop if we continue to hold on to the artificial colonial divisions that divided tribes, peoples and regions without considering the needs of the people. We must unite as one people if we are to guarantee the future survival of our continent, its people, its resources. We can only guarantee the rights of our children and their children’s children to be the owners of our great continent if we take steps to unite our countries.

There can never be peace and development if we are not united. Africans must remember that it was our disunity in the past that enabled Europe to exploit our continent for centuries and even today it is being exploited by the so called super powers to our own disadvantage. We have had our people carried into slavery because of disunity, we have had our resources looted by foreigners because of disunity, we have had our countries invaded, and even today we are under siege from foreign powers and their corporations who are raping the continent of its valuable resources for their own selfish gains. We are helpless because we are fragmented. We are helpless because we cannot speak with one voice. We are helpless because we are disunited. We cannot act together to bring peace to Somalia, Sudan and DR. Congo because some of our leaders with the connivance of foreign defence companies and contractors are benefiting from those conflicts.

If Africa is going to make it then the leaders must act together as one, eschew their personal interests and put the needs of the continent first.

Julius Nyerere in an interview about Africa’s unity said this:

“Kwame Nkrumah and I were committed to the idea of unity. African leaders and heads of state did not take Kwame seriously. However, I did. I did not believe in these small little nations. Still today I do not believe in them. I tell our people to look at the European Union, at these people who ruled us who are now uniting. Kwame and I met in 1963 and discussed African Unity. We differed on how to achieve a United States of Africa. But we both agreed on a United States of Africa as necessary... After independence the wider African community became clear to me. I was concerned about education; the work of Booker T. Washington resonated with me. There were skills we needed and black people outside Africa had them. I gave our US Ambassador the specific job of recruiting skilled Africans from the US Diaspora. A few came. Some stayed; others left. We should try to revive it. We should look to our brothers and sisters in the West. We should build the broader Pan-Africanism. There is still the room – and the need” — Julius Nyerere interviewed by Ikaweba Bunting, The Heart of Africa, New Internationalist Magazine, Issue 309, January-February 1999.

There are many African leaders who are dragging their feet and are drowning the Africa Union initiative. Such leaders are only interested in the power and titles that they have in their own countries. They are not asking the hard question as to why Europe is uniting and what will it be for Africa if we are not united. They are not asking why Mexico, US and Canada are uniting to form the North American Union and they are not asking why US is seeking to establish military bases in Africa through the Africa Command (AFRICOM) project. All these countries are strategising for the next phase of global politics which will centre on who controls what vital resources and in which area. This underscores the reason why US is seeking military bases in Africa to protect her interest and to ensure that its resource needs are met at all cost. How will a small country like Gabon respond if her oil becomes a target of US occupation? Does Equatorial Guinea has the military capability to withstand an all out invasion by Europe if they decide to take her resources by force as America has done in Iraq?

The shortage of resources in Europe and America and its abundance in Africa means in the near future Africa is going to be a battle ground by these countries for the control of the resources. US has projected that by the end the next decade 85% of its oil needs must come from Africa. China too wants Africa's oil. India wants it and the EU is not staying idle either. How is the US going to ensure that the 85% target is met don't you think her Africom project makes sense? How do we respond if we are not united? How do we ensure that Western countries will not exploit our weak and insignificant countries to their own advantage? Currently there are signs that Africa is going to be a battle ground between Europe, US, China and Russia. All of them are vying for control and influence in Africa. It may get very nasty: it may mean wars between these superpowers, it may mean coups in resource rich countries, it may mean civil wars, it may mean assassinations, blackmail, arm twisting all of them tools used by these super powers during the cold war. What are we going to do in the face of these threats and don't we also need these resources ourselves and what are we going to do to protect them if we are not united?

There is strength in unity and that is why Europe is uniting, that is why North American countries are uniting.

Fearful of what Africa could achieve if united, Europe led by France one of the beneficiaries of Africa disunity is proposing what they term ‘Mediterranean Union’ an association that encompasses all nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea including the five north African countries, a move largely seen as an attempt by Europeans to weaken Africa’s effort to unite. This is the divide and rule policies of Europe that has ensured that continental Africanever gets united to do things central to their own people.

“The Mediterranean Union project is also rife with hidden agendas, including the promotion of French national interests, while ignoring some of the biggest dangers in the former European colonies in West Asia and Africa… France’s real motive, though, is to establish a French southern sphere of influence to counter Germany’s dominant position in central and Eastern Europe”.--www.livemint.com, Fri, 1 Aug 2008.The secrecy and the hidden agenda of the Mediterranean Union project was rightly noted byPresident Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal:

“But of course there are other obvious goals behind the Union for the Mediterranean initiative like Algeria's oil and gas and Libyan oil,". The same secrecy and hidden agenda surrounds America's Africom. It can never be about any other thing than the resources in Africa.

We must fight this divide and rule policies if we are ever going to make it as a continent and as a people. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt can never be called Europe and will never be accepted as Europeans no matter what Nicolas Sarkozy says and the earlier the leaders in North Africa realise it the better. We must resist and fight every attempt to weaken and destroy our effort to unite. We must be very wary about US, Europe, China, Russia and their intentions.

Today Europe is moving forward with political and economic integration while it is making effort to weaken Africa with the hope that a weakened, fragmented and disunited Africa will make it easier for the resources of these countries to be exploited and looted as is currently going on in Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, DRC, Angola, Congo where American and European multinational corporations are paying close to nothing for the resources they take.

Leaders in Africa who are dragging their feet and only interested in the sovereignty of their insignificant countries must recognise that a united Africa is in their best interest and those of their children and their children’s children.They may be less concerned and not interested in Africa unity because they may be enjoying power in their respective countries but how can they guarantee the future of their own countries, the future of their children and their children's children when they are weak economically and continue to rely on foreign aid for the survival of their governments?

I believe President Abdoulaye Wade was right when he said: “We cannot be kept into a limited space by African leaders who are holding on to petty little states”. By any margin each of the countries in Africa is weak politically, economically and militarily to stand on its own and it is only by uniting and integrating our economies that we can stand on our feet and be recognized as people. We must not hold on to our small, weak and powerless states in the name of sovereignty, we must unite for the good of Africa and its people.

"Sovereignty also masks the weakness of Africans at a time when other people have pooled political power in vast territories like China, India,Brazil, Russia and the United States of America. The very colonial countries that were the "foreigners" against whom independent African states wished to protect their sovereignty are themselves building the European Union as a bigger source of power in the global arena”--http://allafrica.com/stories/200908061022.html, 6 August 2009. Where as there is common sense as why Europe is uniting, there is no common sense as why Africans who are weak in every sense of the word are not uniting. If the powerful are uniting definitely, the weak must be uniting too.

We must achieve unity at all cost. There are many in East and South Africa that favour United States of Africa through the regional groupings whereas those in the North and West favour a more rapid integration. We can not allow this to delay and detract our effort to unite. Therefore I suggest we allow our diplomats, intellectuals to dialogue and negotiate as which approach suits us best but the 2017 deadline must be met.

We stand to gain if we are united. Unity has the added advantage of defeating the the divide and rule policies of Europe. It has the advantage of ending the wars that continue to ravage many parts of the continent. It has the advantage of helping us to pool resources together to tackle the many challenges facing the continent. Unity will end the disputes between Nigeria and Cameroon regarding the ownership of the Bakasi Peninsula. It will end the near escalated tension between Kenya and Uganda that we saw this year over the Migingo island in Lake Victoria. Unity will end the 9 km stretch of land in Yumbe that has brought dispute between Uganda and Sudan, it will end the Katuna and Mutukula border area dispute between Rwanda and Tanzania. If we are united as one people and as one country there will be no need for the many border disputes including the one between Morocco, Algeria and Western Sahara. Unity will make it unnecessary for Uganda and Rwanda to cross several times into DR. Congo to take resources for the development of their countries. Unity will enable us to speak with voice, deal with Europe, America, China, Russia and India through the government that will represent all of us. We can harness the resources in Africa for the good of all us so that Niger, Mali, Rwanda, Ethiopia and other resource poor countries will not have to go to war before having access to resources that they need.

Hutus, Tutsis and other tribes in the Great Lake region will not have to fight each other for control of land and resources since they will not be bound by space. They can come to Ghana live anywhere, farm and enjoy their live. That is what unity can bring us.

To make the unity of Africa possible we must stop thinking in terms of Anglophone, Francophone and Arabs or Mediterraneans. We must think as Africans not as French or English or German or Dutch, Spanish or Portuguese, or Arabic speakers. There can never be a United States of Africa so far as we are divided into Anglophone and Francophone. These divisions and categorisations only serve France and Britain’s interest not us. These categorisations have been exploited by those who want to see Africans poor. Those who for centuries manipulated us, exploited our resources, imprisoned our leaders, overthrew our governments and assassinated our leaders still want to control us. If we do not unite against the external forces bent on seeing us weak and fragmented then we have ourselves to blame. Unity must be achieved at all cost.

There is no doubt that there are differences in languages, religion, and traditional or cultural practices among our peoples but that should not be a source of division, wars and hatred but rather they must be a source of inspiration that drive us together. We cannot refuse to acknowledge the various types of political systems currently evidence in Africa: monarchies, democracies and autocracies however if we put the interest of the continent and its people first I am confidence these challenges can be solved no matter how difficult it is.There are other challenges such as the huge size of the continent, the high level of illiteracy, wide infrastructural gaps, poverty, but all these can be solved if we commit our hearts to it. We need not agonise about these. All that we need is for our political leaders to commit themselves to the idea of United States of Africa, get the people sensitised, have a sense of purpose and direction as to where we want to go, when we want to go and how we want to get there.

It is important that we make the United States of Africa a reality by the 2017 deadline. It therefore important that some countries make economic and political sacrifices if we are to get there. South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Kenya, DRC, Botswana, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Angola must make political commitment to bring peace and stability in Africa. The unity of Africa depends on the cooperation of these countries.

"Together we stand, together we fall" that should be our motto. We are all God's children. We are all Africans and Africa is our home and we must all work to make it good for ourselves, for our children and for our children’s children. The people of Southern Sudan, Northern Sudan, and Darfur must see themselves as Africans not as Southerners, Northerners or Darfurians. Those categorisations only serve the interest of those who want the wars to continue so they can exploit our resources while we are busy fighting. We must know that there is no Nigeria but Africa; there is no Egypt or Algeria, Libya or Sudan or Kenya, Tanzania,South Africa but Africa. If we think as Africans and work together we can accomplish a lot for our peoples.

Individually we cannot deal with the United States, the European Union, Russia or China, we cannot because we do not have the strength to act and bring pressure to bear. If we want to make our influence felt as the world’s natural resource power house then we must unite and speak with one voice, unite and have one foreign policy, unite and have one economic policy, unite and have one agricultural policy, unite and have one trade policy.

Currently at the United Nations there are more countries from Africa than from Europe and North America combined yet we do not have any say on what goes on in there because we are not united, we do not speak with one voice.

China which is just one country makes a lot of impact at the United Nations than all the over 50+ countries from Africa. If we want to change this unfavourable balance of power, take the destiny of Africa into our own hands, protect its people and resources from external exploitation, develop the economy to benefit its people then we have no option than to unite.

Yes we can but only if we are united.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Eritrea to pay Ethiopia millions

An international tribunal in The Hague has ruled that Eritrea will have to pay Ethiopia millions of dollars in compensation for war damages. Both were ordered to pay each other damages for the 1998-2000 border war, but the verdict leaves Eritrea with $10m (£6m) more to pay. The ruling covers compensation for businesses and goods lost and villages destroyed during the bitter conflict. Eritrea has already said it accepts the ruling of the tribunal. The Claims Commission, set up at the end of the war, ruled on awards across a range of issues. It gave a monetary value to the damage suffered by Ethiopians during a notorious incident when Eritrean jets dropped cluster bombs on a school in the town of Mekele. It also awarded Eritreans living in Ethiopia, whose homes and properties were seized by the government. Some claims - such as an Ethiopian demand for $1bn of environmental damage - were dismissed. In total Ethiopia was awarded $174m, while Eritrea got $164m - a net payment to Ethiopia of just over $10m. The chief legal adviser to Ethiopia, Don Pickard, said he did not think the amount reflected the level of damage suffered by Ethiopia during the war. BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says the real tragedy is that the money, like the rest of the internationally supported peace process, will settle very little. The border between the two countries is still in dispute and tens of thousands of troops remain entrenched along the border, over its bleak mountains and deserts. Source: BBC

Genocide suspect found in Congo

Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 1994 A man accused of planning the massacre of Rwandans during the 1994 genocide has been arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials say. A government statement named the suspect as Gregoire Ndahimana, who is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). He was detained by Congolese soldiers in the eastern province of North Kivu. They were taking part in UN-backed operations against ethnic Hutu rebels, many of whom fled to DR Congo in 1994. Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 100-day genocide. Bulldozed church "He was discovered by our units operating in North Kivu... He was hiding among the FDLR [Hutu rebels]," Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. According to his ICTR indictment, Mr Ndahimana is responsible for the deaths of at least 2,000 Tutsis, most of whom were killed when a church in which they had sought refuge was bulldozed. The ICTR, which is based in Arusha, Tanzania, has completed 45 cases. It was initially due to complete its prosecutions by the end of 2008, but the UN Security Council has given the court until the end of 2010 to finish the trials.

Is the ICC Targeting Africa and Third World Countries?

By Lord Aikins Adusei

The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. As of May 18, 2009, it has issued public arrest warrants for thirteen individuals. Two have died, seven of them remain free, four are currently in custody of the court. The four who are in custody are Thomas Lubanga former warlord from DR. Congo; Germaine Katanga former warlord from DR. Congo; Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui also from DR Congo; and Jean-Pierre Bemba from Central Africa Republic. 

Among the seven who remain free are Joseph Kony from Uganda; Vincent Otti from Uganda, Raska Lukwiya from Uganda, Okot Odhiambo from Uganda and Dominic Ongwen also from Uganda. The rest are Bosco Ntaganda from DRC, Ahmed Haroun from Darfur, Ali Kushayb also from Darfur, and Omar Al Bashir from Sudan. All thirteen of the indicted individuals have been charged with war crimes, and eleven of them have also been charged with crimes against humanity. 

A careful look at the list of the people indicted by the ICC reveals that all those indicted are Africans or of African descent. This has raised a number of questions and allegations that the court is targeting Africans or has been established purposely to deal with the third world, a charge the court has vehemently denied.However, these claims appear to hold water and become weightier when one looks at what has gone on and continue to go on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Gaza and other parts of the world.

The argument against the court is that if Omar Al Bashir is being accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the deaths in Darfur then what about those who invaded, occupied, destroyed and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? We all know the invasion of Iraq was done on a pack of lies; those who did the invasion did not have UN mandate to invade and occupy Iraq and neither were they invited by the Iraqis. We also know today that the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was also false. We are aware of the countless number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the invasion. We are aware of the total destruction of the country by the illegitimate and so called coalition forces. From the evidence gathered so far, is the ICC saying that there is no question to answer and that the invasion, occupation, the destruction of the country and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent children, women and civilians was a just course and that the war did not violate any international law? Can the ICC tell the whole world how different the prosecution of the war in Iraq is from those in Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo or Northern Uganda? What effort has the ICC made to secure prosecution against the perpetrators of the Iraq war? Are the ICC officials living on a different Planet?

Is the ICC aware of the continued insecurity in Iraq created by President Bush, PM Tony Blair and,Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and the fact that most Iraqis today live in fear of their lives, and lack most basic necessities of life such as water and electricity? Is the ICC aware of the torture, humiliation and mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib Prison and the fact that only low key officers were court marshalled by the US Army while the big fish continue to enjoy their life outside prison? How different is the estimated 655,000 Iraqis who have died so far and the estimated 300,000 Darfuris deaths?

Is the ICC not deliberately targeting Africans because they are financially poor, military weak and politically ill organised? Is the ICC not targeting Africans because of their skin colour and the fact that they are people without a voice in the world? Is the ICC not using Africa as a proving ground? How many African countries have the infrastructures, expertise and resources to produce the millions of light and heavy weapons littered across the continent which are being used to maim, kill and terrorise the people? What effort has the ICC made to prosecute Western defence companies and contractors who have tend Africa into graveyards? What effort has the ICC made to prosecute the 85 companies who were implicated in a UN report of October 2002 for supplying arms to Uganda and Rwanda armies as well as to the 25 militia groups in DR Congo so that these companies could continue to meet the West insatiable appetite for technology, diamond, gold, coltan and timber? Is the ICC aware that the beneficiaries of the war in DR. Congo were named as Cabot Corporation, Eagle Wings Resources International, Trinitech International, Kemet Electronics Corporation, OM Group (OMG), Barclays Bank, De Beer, Anglo American, Bayer and Vishay Sprague most of them European and American multinational corporations? Why is it that the executives of these corporations who supply the arms and finance the wars have not been indicted, arrested and prosecuted by the ICC? Is it because they are from the West or have different skin colour? Is indicting the Africans who are the foot soldiers and leaving the arms suppliers and financiers in the West not selective justice?

Again is the ICC saying that the extraordinary rendition or secrete CIA prisons in Cuba, Morocco, Egypt and Thailand where presumed enemies of the West are arrested, tortured, imprisoned without trial; denied access to their lawyers, families, food, sleep, are stripped naked and water boarded are not violation of international law? If in the eyes of the ICC the conduct of the war in Iraq and its aftermath are just and that Bush, Rumsfeld, Tony Blair and the CIA did not commit crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression against the Iraqi people then why has the CIA destroyed 92 tapes believed to be containing evidence of torture and war crimes against Iraqis, Afghans and other so called war-on-terror suspects? Has the ICC deduced anything from the destruction of the tapes? Are the CIA and her political masters not destroying evidence that might be used to incriminate them? What has the ICC got to say about that or the ICC has remained silence because the destruction of the tapes did not happen in Africa? 

The recent release of some Guantanamo detainees including Binyam Mohamed and their claim of being tortured collaborate the report that the CIA destroyed the tapes in order to protect former administration members and CIA agents from prosecution. Doesn't the large number of videotapes destroyed confirm to the ICC that the CIA is trying to hide evidence of intense torture and possible deaths of suspects in detention, if so then is it not a criminal offence against international law to torture and destroy evidence of the crime?

If the ICC is not deliberately targeting Africa then why is it that the court has not said anything about the invasion, occupation and the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan? Like Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been killed; the infrastructure of the country destroyed; and the people live in constant fear of their lives, all in the name of war-on-terror. What does the invasion, occupation, destruction of infrastructure and the indiscriminate killing of innocent children, women and civilians in Afghanistan amount to? 

The recent release of memos showing how President Bush officials authorised suspects to be denied food, sleep, made to strip naked and subjected to water boarding (simulated drowning) have caused outcry around the world and have been called torture by President Obama so what is the ICC take of that? As an international criminal court that may pride itself with the use of evidence to obtain sentences, do these evidence make the ICC have any sympathy for these victims of torture and inhumane treatment?

Furthermore, if the ICC is not targeting Africans then what justification has it got not to indict the leadership of the Israeli government and the army for the utter destruction of Gaza; the killing of more than 1300 people most of them innocent civilians; as well as the over 5300 who were injured in the 22 day air, sea and ground assault on Gaza? At least 4000 homes were destroyed and more than 50,000 people were rendered homeless. UN and Red Crescent facilities, schools, mosques, hospitals and power installations were deliberately and systematically targeted and destroyed. Medical personnel were shot at as they tried to evacuate the injured and the dead; the seriously injured were prevented from leaving Gaza to receive medical care abroad, people who wanted to flee the war were prevented from doing so as the borders were sealed off and weapons that should not be used in populated areas were used. There were no discrimination between civilians, Police personnel and their facilities and Palestinian fighters as bombs were rained on everyone everywhere. 

Gaza today is the biggest prison in the world with the people in dire need of food, water, electricity and medicines. Are those collective punishment not war crimes? The fact that the Israeli government put together a team of lawyers headed by the Justice Minister to defend the soldiers should charges be brought against any of them, is an indication that even the Israelis believe their actions were tantamount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. When the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman in the person of Mark Regev was asked by an Aljazeera broadcaster on the use of white phosphorous in densely populated areas in Gaza, his response was that the Israeli Army did not use any weapons that the Americans, Canadians, British and the NATO forces did not use or are not using in Iraq and Afghanistan which is to say if we are guilty then they might be guilty as well. What justification has the ICC got not to indict the Israeli leadership? 

A recent report released by an Israeli academy says that soldiers have admitted committing war crimes in Gaza. The testimony published by the Israeli military college at Oranim gives damning soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians and vandalism during recent operations in Gaza. "One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home. Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the cold blooded murder of a Palestinian woman. "The climate in general... I don't know how to describe it.... the lives of Palestinians, let's say, are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers," an infantry squad leader is quoted as saying. In another cited case, a commander ordered troops to kill an elderly woman walking on a road, even though she was easily identifiable and clearly not a threat. Dany Zamir director of the academy told an Israeli public radio: "[The testimonies] conveyed an atmosphere in which one feels entitled to use unrestricted force against Palestinians". Source bbc.news.co.uk 

A United Nations inquiry on May 5, 2009 accused the Israeli military of "negligence or recklessness" in its conduct of the January war in Gaza. UN has even been advised to press claims for reparations for deaths and damage. And it is not only UN which says Israel committed war crimes, all major human rights organisations agree on that subject. There are reports that Israel is operating secrete prisons and our knowledge about CIA secrete prisons tells us what goes on in those Israeli facilities.

What is more, is the ICC saying Russian leaders did not commit war crimes in their conduct of the wars in Chechnya and Georgia? Or those crimes have been ignored or overlooked because it involves another untouchable superpower showing its muscles against a defenceless people?

And how about the illegal detention, torture, imprisonment and mistreatment of Tibetans and Muslims in China by the Chinese authorities? Why has the ICC refused to indict any member of the Chinese administration for such blatant violations of human rights? Every year the US State Department releases what it claims to be human rights abuses in China yet we have not heard any indictment or prosecution from the ICC. 

Additionally, are the Swiss government and the banking institutions in that country not guilty of crimes against humanity for keeping billions of dollars of stolen monies meant for the welfare of humanity? And how about the governments of Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, France and Jersey Islands and their banking institutions that have become well off through monies stolen from the poorest of the poor? Is the ICC saying keeping billions of dollars of stolen money meant for the welfare of the people not a crime against humanity? Or the ICC has closed her eyes and ears because the institutions and corporations involved are of Western origin? 

There were a number of calls mostly in the West for Robert Mugabe to be put on trial for not providing the medicines needed to fight the cholera epidemic that ravaged Zimbabwe. The question is if Mugabe should be put on trial then how about UBS, Credit Suisse, Barclays Bank, Citi Bank and others who are keeping the money that could be used by the people themselves to buy the medicines?

If Americans are calling for Bush, Rumsfeld and some Pentagon officials to be prosecuted for sending Americans to die in vain and for ordering detainees to be tortured then what is the ICC doing? What is the war on terror telling the ICC; what is the indiscriminate killing of children, women and civilians and the daily violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan telling the ICC? Has the ICC got different sets of rules for the third world and another for the so called developed world?

Is the US not culpable for selling or donating military machines that Israel used and continue to use to destroy Palestinian homes and kill unarmed civilians? If there is anyone on earth who has to stand before the ICC to answer charges of war crimes and crime against humanity does the ICC think it should be Al Bashir and her Africa colleagues alone? Shouldn't Bush, Blair, Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld and the hawks in their administration be also indicted? But will the ICC have the courage to put Bush on trial for illegally invading, occupying, destroying Iraq and creating one of the serious humanitarian crises ever to hit the Middle East in recent memories? Is leaving Bush and his cronies and indicting Omar Al Bashir and the other foot soldiers in Africa not selective justice?

Is the ICC's silence on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Chechnya, Georgia and the wider war on terror not vindicating her critics that the ICC is there to prosecute Africans and third world countries and not war aggressors from the West like Bush, Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, Putin; the corrupt banking, oil, defence, and technology cartels in Europe, North America, Japan and China who provide most of the funding for the wars and instabilities in Africa? 

Can the ICC explain to the world why leaders of America, Britain, Russia, China and Israel should go unpunished while Africa leaders should be punished for committing the same crime? Or has the ICC got different guidelines regarding crimes and punishment for the third world and another set for members of the developed world and their friends? Are the lives of Africans any different from Tibetans, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Chechens and Georgians?

If those indicted in Africa have committed any crime surely they must face the consequences of their actions but it will also be an injustice if those supplying the weapons and bankrolling the conflicts are allowed to go unpunished. I do not accept any law or any notion that make certain people who commit crimes untouchable while others are pursued vigorously for committing the same crime. If we want the world to be peaceful for all mankind to live in and pass it on to future generations, then institutions like the ICC tasked with ensuring that peace should not be selective, biased or partial or perceived to be biased towards a certain class of the earth's citizens. 

No one should be treated or made to feel s/he is above international law when it comes to things that matter to the whole world, not even United States President. No nation no matter her economic, social or military capabilities should be treated differently when it breaks international law. No individuals no matter the office that s/he holds should be exempted from prosecution if he or she breaks international law. It is by upholding this principle that the ICC will be seen to be credible, impartial and unbiased. For what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

The Author is a Political Activist and Anti-Corruption Campaigner

Multinational Corporations:The New Colonizers in Africa

Before the end of the first colonialism African nations were properties of their colonial masters who did what they could to rape the continent of whatever resource they deem good for the development of their countries and citizens in Europe. Out of nowhere and without any consultation with the people in the continent the Europeans met and divided the continent amongst themselves in what has been termed the scramble for Africa.

Through the scramble France, Britain, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy all went on a looting spree raping Africa of her resources without putting any of the proceeds back for the development of the continent.

When US President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Gambia on January 13th 1943 he was so appalled by the conditions of Gambians so much so that he made this lamentation,

“It's the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life..... The natives are five thousand years back of us....The British have been there for two hundred years - for every dollar that the British have put into Gambia, they have taken out ten. It's just plain exploitation of those people”. “I must tell Churchill what I found out about his British Gambia today”. “This morning, at about eight-thirty, we drove through Bathurst to the airfield.” “The natives were just getting to work. In rags…glum-looking.…They told us the natives would look happier around noontime, when the sun should have burned off the dew and the chill. I was told the prevailing wages for these men was one and nine. One shilling nine pence. Less than fifty cents.” “An hour?” Elliott asked. “A day! Fifty cents a day! Besides which, they’re given a half-cup of rice. Dirt. Disease. Very high mortality rate. I asked. Life expectancy—you’d never guess what it is. Twenty-six years. Those people are treated worse than the livestock. Their cattle live longer!” US President Franklin D. Roosevelt 1943. Source: The American Heritage.

And the exploitation was not peculiar to only Gambia. Gold Coast (now Ghana), Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Zaire (now DRC), Namibia, South Africa, Congo and Angola all suffered from the same colonial exploitation and underinvestment.

For almost three hundred years the Europeans who were supposedly devout Christians and civilised, irresponsibly looted Africa’s resources and made slaves of the natives without developing the colonies. When the local population protested against the exploitation without a reciprocal investment they were brutally crashed as happened in Congo (now DRC) where King Leopold II of Belgium looted the resources, made slaves, and killed close to ten million of the Congolese.

In 1904 to 1907 the Germans led by Gen. Lotha Von Trotha also committed their first genocide of the 20th Century by killing 90% of the Herero and the Namaqua people of South West Africa (now Namibia) when the people protested against the exploitation of their resources. And the sad stories of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Namibia, Kenya and Angola where people were denied access to land, citizenship and basic rights and had to take up arms before they were granted independence are in many history books.

We know how Nelson Mandela (now a hero in Europe) and a number of freedom fighters endured long prison sentences, torture, exile and deaths in the hands of their devout Christians and civilised European colonisers. The prevailling idea in Europe was that through the scramble for Africa they had bought Africa and had power to do as they wish hence the rape, torture, genocide and the mass killings. While Europeans became richer Africans became poorer.

For example with the loot of Congo’s resources, enslavement, amputations of hands and 10 million deaths, Brussels which now doubles as the capital of the European Union and Belgium was built. When they were given their ‘freedom’ the independent fathers inherited nothing more than empty treasuries. They realised that after more than 300 hundred years of colonial rule their colonial masters have left them with nothing, no money and no infrastructure. This bad situation and their eagerness to improve the lives of their peoples forced them to turn to the IMF and World Bank for assistance and when they went lo and behold the colonial masters were there waiting for them.

The colonisers used their majority votes to dictate to the Bank and IMF on how these former colonies should be helped. (Of the 185 members that make up the IMF, six colonial masters and their allies made up of the United States, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Italy control 42% of the votes). The colonial masters dictated to the IMF and the Bank that for Africans to be helped, they must open their economies to allow European corporations in. This underscores the numerous conditionalities that are associated with loans from these institutions. The conditionalities are nothing more than a smokescreen designed to ensure that Europeans never loose their grip on the resources of the colonies. Some of the conditionalities include instituting secrets memorandums of agreement, subsidies to foreign corporations and massive tax concessions (such as income tax, usage fees, property tax) -the primary source of revenue for “export-oriented” developing countries.

The sad thing is that Africans thought independence would give them respite to develop but this was never to be as the colonial masters used their corporations and intelligence services to deliver vengeance against the people: encouraging and financing civil wars; unashamedly polluting rivers, wells and the soil through their oil and mineral activities; understating their profits and falsifying profit documents; undervaluing their goods, smuggling and theft; false invoicing and non-payment of taxes; kickback to public officials and bribery; over pricing of projects; providing save havens for the looted funds; promoting the sale of guns; overthrowing African leaders; supporting dictatorships; and assassinating those who disagree with them. We know those who instigated the overthrow of Dr. Nkrumah and the tragic assassination of Patrice Lumumba.And we know the support the West gave Mobutu and other tyrants in Africa.In addition to these, the corporations who were forced onto Africa by IMF the Bank, US and Europe have been implicated in a number of cases for corrupting African leaders and stealing trillions of dollars worth of resources.

Global Financial Integrity says, “$900-billion is secreted each year from underdeveloped economies, with an estimated $11.5 trillion currently stashed in havens. More than one quarter of these hubs belong to the UK, while Switzerland washes one-third of global capital flight”. Out of this $900b that is secreted away yearly $150b comes from Africa.

“The idea that Switzerland has a clean economy is a joke; it is a dirt-driven economy,” says Richard Murphy, director of Tax Research LLP. The Swiss Bankers Association claims that four-fifths of the nation supports banking secrecy, which reveals a society deeply embedded in a culture of impunity and exploitation.

The fact is that those who steal must find a way to hide their loot and Switzerland provide the ideal environment for such crimes to take place. And it is not Switzerland alone that does not have a clean economy. Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg can all be described as vampires.

In an article by Khadija Sharife entitled Capital Flight: Gingerbread Havens, Cannibalised Economies she wrote: “The IMF and World Bank tax policies towards the developing world is very lethal especially where the poor are now caught in tax brackets, courtesy of the IMF and World Bank’s structural adjustment programmes (SAP), instituting policies ranging from tax holidays to the privatisation of state services, carving out huge slices of natural capital at corporate auctions. Africa has collectively lost more than $600-billion in capital flight, excluding other mechanisms of flight such as ecological debt (globally estimated at a potential $1.8-trillion per annum), the cost of liberalised trade (just under $300-billion)”. Source:http://www.greenleft.au. Thus with the support and collusion of IMF and the Bank these corporations are paying close to nothing for the resources they take from Africa.

Africa has been labelled the world’s most corrupt region because multinational internal mispricing makes up 60% of capital outflow, with corporations declaring profits in tax havens, as opposed to the country of performance. Corporations declare about 40% of their profits in African countries where they operate and siphon the rest into their save havens accounts in order to avoid paying tax which could be used to eradicate poverty. And this is not the end of the corruption and the day light robbery story.

We know how Elf operated as an arm of the French state supporting dictators, looting the resources and establishing flush fund which was used to bribe African leaders so they will look the other way while Elf loot Africa’s oil and gas.

Nicholas Shaxson, author of Poisoned Wells, wrote of the subject: “Magistrates discovered the money from Elf’s African operations supplied bribes to support French commercial, military and diplomatic goals around the world. In exchange, French troops protected compliant African dictators.” This explains why there are so many corrupt dictators in French-Speaking Africa than anywhere in Africa. Omar Bongo, Eyadema, Mobutu, Lansana Conte, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Blaise Campore, Sassou Nguesso and Iddriss Deby are some of the compliant leaders who were or have been protected by France.

And what happened to the non-compliant African leaders? Your guess is mine. Please find time to read more about Bob Denard, a French who made a career as a mercenary overthrowing African leaders. French author Jean Guisner says: “Denard did nothing that was contrary to French interests - and he allegedly acted in close cooperation with French Intelligence Services”.

In the Elf corruption case Andre Tarallo the real boss of Elf-Afrique' “Told the court in June 2003 that annual cash transfers totalling about £10m were made to Omar Bongo, Gabon's president, while other huge sums were paid to leaders in Angola, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville. The multi-million dollar payments were partly paid to ensure the African leaders' continued allegiance to France. In return for protection and sweeteners from Elf's coffers, France used Gabon as a base for military and espionage activities in West Africa”. Source: Guardian, Nov. 2003.

The real deal is that Elf, Shell BP and their counterparts in Europe and America pay bribes to African leaders to induce them to look the other way while they plunder the resources. Ask any Gabonese or Congolese whether they have benefited from the oil and diamonds and the answer will be a big no. What is so tragic is that the people know they have oil, diamonds and see these companies processing them everyday yet do not know where it goes, who buys them and where the proceeds go.

In UK former Prime Minister Tony Blair was accused of selling a device with an ageing technology to Tanzania. “The UK sold a useless air traffic control system to Tanzania in 2001 in a scandalous and squalid deal, the House of Commons was told.” Clare Short an MP said, “The deal was useless and hostile to the interests of Tanzania”. She said, “Barclays Bank had colluded with the government by loaning Tanzania the money, but lying to the World Bank about the type and size of the loan.” Ms Short said “Tanzania could have paid much less for the same equipment which cost them £28m”. Shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said “BAE had used ageing technology and said the system was not adequate and too expensive.” Source: BBCNEWS, Wednesday, 31 January 2007.

And it all happened after they had bought Tanzania officials to look the other way while a device with an ageing technology was sold to the country. BAE colluded with Tony Blair and Barclays Bank to sell a useless commodity at exorbitant price to Tanzania. This is nothing but a continuation of the contempt and impunity in which Europeans have treated Africa before, during and after colonialism. BAE is indirectly saying that Africans do not deserve the latest technology even if they pay cat throat price. It is also a message to Africans that they must develop their own technology and not rely on the generosity of others.

It is no secrete that Shell Oil Company colluded with the corrupt Abacha regime to steal oil, pollute the rivers, wells, creeks and soil and render millions of famers and fishermen in the Niger Delta jobless. Shell “admitted that it inadvertently fed conflict, poverty and corruption through its oil activities in the country. Nigeria contributes to about 10% of Shell's global production and is home to some of its most promising reserves, yet the country is steeped in poverty and conflict”. Source: bbcnews 18 June 2004. So Shell in addition to stealing Nigeria’s oil and polluting rivers, wells and soils also promote corruption, poverty and conflict.

In DRC about five million people have died in a war whose motive is to satisfy the West insatiable appetite for high quality but low price cell phones, laptop computers, play-stations, jewels, diamond and coltan. And who cares about five million deaths in Paris, London, Brussels, Berlin, New York or Washington anyway? Why has the DRC war not ended? Who supplies the rebels their arms and for what and who buys the minerals they mine illegally? Why have Uganda and Rwanda forces crossed several times into DRC? And whose agenda are they pursuing? A report by the UN says it all.

The panel calls for financial restrictions to be levied on 54 individuals and 29 companies it said are involved in the plunder, including four Belgian diamond companies and the Belgian company George Forrest, which is partnered with the U.S.-based OM Group. The individuals named include Rwandan army Chief of Staff James Kabarebe, Congolese Minister of the Presidency Augustin Katumba Mwanke, Ugandan army Chief of Staff James Kazini and Zimbabwean Parliament Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, BBC Online reports (Oct. 21, 2002).

The report also accused 85 South African, European and U.S. multinational corporations – including Anglo American, Barclays Bank, Bayer, De Beers and Cabot Corporation of violating the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's ethical guidelines on conflict zones.

The guidelines they were accused of violating relate to arming Rwanda, Uganda and Congolese rebels and profiting from their illegal looting of Congo’s minerals as the following excerpt shows: “Despite the recent withdrawal of most foreign forces, the exploitation of Congo's resources continues, the report says, with elite networks and criminal groups tied to the military forces of Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe benefiting from micro-conflicts in the D.R.C.” "The elite networks derive financial benefit through a variety of criminal activities, including theft, embezzlement, diversion of public funds, undervaluation of goods, smuggling, false invoicing, non-payment of taxes, kickback to public officials and bribery," and added that such pillaging is responsible for much of the death and malnutrition in eastern D.R.C.” Source:http://www.unwire.org.

And so while millions die in Africa with the complicity of the corporations, Europe and North American citizens with all their hypocrisy enjoy lavish holidays. And when Africans try to reach Europe the citizens say rain in on them, Europe is full no more immigrants. Where do the queens and kings in Europe get the diamonds and gold that they use to show off? Is it not from the blood diamonds from Congo, Sierra Leone and conflict zones in Africa that are smuggled out and sold in Brussels, Zurich, London and New York?

And this is not their only crime. We know how Halliburton established $180m flush fund and bought Nigeria officials to secure a $10b oil contract. We know Acre International of Canada paid $260,000 to secure $8b dam contract in Lesotho. We know Swiss, British, German and French economies and banking institutions have made fortunes by providing save havens for funds looted by Sani Abacha, Mobutu, Omar Bongo, Lansana Conte, Arap Moi and the rest of the dictators in Africa. And it is no secrete Belgium is angry with DRC government for inviting China into the country because they are privy to and beneficiary of all the day light robberies going on in the resource rich but economically impoverished country.

Africans know that these corporations are making fortunes but see no benefits from these fortunes. Ghanaians know gold and diamond are being mined at Obuasi and Akwatia but they do not know where it goes, who buys them and where the proceeds go and the same is true of the oil in Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, Algeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea and as for DRC a nation with one-third of world’s natural resources the little I say the better.

This corruption and day light robbery is what has been polished as globalisation which Europe, America, IMF and the Bank want Africa and the third world to join. My question is whose globalisation? Is it the globalisation that only those with blue eyes enjoy or what? If the answer is no then the IMF and the Bank should explain why the world is divided between the “whites haves and the coloured have-nots”. Is this not the second colonialism dressed as globalisation?

Dr. Susan Hawley says it all: “Multinational corporations’ corrupt practices affect the South (i.e. Africa, Asia and Latin America) in many ways. They undermine development and exacerbate inequality and poverty. They disadvantage smaller domestic firms and transfer money that could be put towards poverty eradication into the hands of the rich. They distort decision-making in favour of projects that benefit the few rather than the many. They also increase debt that benefit the company, not the country; bypass local democratic processes; damage the environment; circumvent legislation; and promote weapons sales. Bribes put up the prices of projects. When these projects are paid for with money borrowed internationally, bribery adds to a country's external debt. Ordinary people end up paying this back through cuts in spending on health, education and public services. Often they also have to pay by shouldering the long-term burdens of projects that do not benefit them and which they never requested”. Source: The Corner House, June 2000.

And in all these, the Western media have kept silence. They have not raise a voice against what their governments, intelligence services, corporations and businessmen are doing to Africans. They prefer instead to criticise China for courting the same African leaders Euro-Americans have been protecting for decades. A clear hypocrisy isn’t it? These are the same criticisms King Leopold II levelled against the Arabs who were competing with him for resources and slaves in Congo and we know what Leopold, the 19th century Hitler did in DRC in the name of Christianity and civilisation.

The meaning of their criticism is that with China as a fierce competitor, Africans now have a choice not to go to the World Bank and IMF for conditional loans. They also have a choice to either give their resources to Chinese companies or European and American cartels. It may be the beginning of the end of colonialism, slavery, instabilities, dictatorships, corruption and all the ills that Europeans and Americans have been exporting to Africa. It may be the beginning where Africa’s resources will be bought and payment made to the people and a new chapter that will usher in Africa’s development and close the poverty gap from five thousand years to perhaps one-hundred as observed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

By Lord Aikins Adusei The Author is a Political Activist and Anti-Corruption Campaigner. He blogs at http://www.iloveafrica2.blogspot.com and can be contacted at politicalthinker1@yahoo.com